


The Kids Aren't Alright

by skarletfyre



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dysphoria, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Misgendering, Past Child Abuse, child prostitution, domestic abuse, mentions only, reference to unsafe binding, suicide of a family member, there is nothing graphic in any of these chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-12 02:37:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3340454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarletfyre/pseuds/skarletfyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of tragic backstories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Spy

**Author's Note:**

> somebody asked me if i was ever going to explain Spy's backstory in WDITD. i never got around to it, but i figured i might as well do it at some point. and then i thought hey why not just do the whole team?
> 
> and now we're here.

* * *

 

 

He is three years old, and his mother is screaming.

The closet door sticks when he pushes against it, but he knows better than to try and get out. He sits on the dusty floor, pudgy arms and fat little hands wrapped tightly around his threadbare teddy bear. He is crying, but silently. He's not supposed to make any noise. He's not supposed to be there. He's not supposed to exist.

 

* * *

 

 

He is five, and his cheek stings from the slap. Back of the hand, and it will takes hours for the redness to fade. All he wanted was a hug.

 

* * *

 

 

He is eight years old, and the ladies of the house are all cooing over him. Telling him what a handsome boy he is. Pinching his cheeks and his backside, flattening his hair. One of them makes an unkind comment that he doesn't understand, and another woman swats her on the arm.

“He's only a boy!” she says in French. His mother tongue, and the only language he speaks. The first woman laughs.

“He won't be a boy forever. Better to get him working now, while he's still worth something. They pay extra when they're young.”

 

* * *

 

 

He is ten years old, and his mother is dead.

What little money she had saved goes to the fat, unsmiling woman who owns the house. He sees none of it. He has to earn his own.

Tomorrow he will be on the streets.

 

* * *

 

 

He is thirteen and beautiful. Dark hair and light eyes, a slim frame and high cheeks made sharper by the fact he has not eaten in four days.

A man in a suit is beckoning to him from the back of a black car across the street.

He crushes his cigarette beneath the worn heel of his stolen shoes and walks over to the car. He climbs inside. The man puts a hand on his leg and doesn't ask his name.

 

* * *

 

 

He is fourteen. There are soldiers in the streets.

He speaks English now, broken as it is. Out of necessity. Bits of other languages, only so much as he needs to answer the usual questions.

_How old. How much._

Another man in a dark car is waving to him, but he was already walking toward it before the window was rolled down.

 

* * *

 

 

He is fourteen, watching a sign go up in the window of the tailor's shop, asking for an apprentice. He doesn't know how to sew, but he hasn't eaten for a week and the streets are not safe for boys like him, who look like he does and say the wrong prayers in the wrong tongue.

The old man in the window catches him watching and waves.

 

* * *

 

 

He is fourteen, but only for a few days more.

He learns quickly. How to lie, and how to run, and how to hide. He is small, and quick. He's not used to fighting yet. The gun they gave him is too big and too heavy in his thin hands, but he's learning. And every day he gets a little better.

He prefers the knife.

 

* * *

 

 

He is fifteen and well dressed, with forged documents in the pocket of his suit jacket and a cigarette between his lips. He climbs into the backseat of a dark car, and the man waiting inside doesn't put a hand on his knee or call him _boy._ He doesn't say anything at all. He gives him the papers and gets out of the car. He doesn't breathe again until he is three blocks away, out of sight and safe.

 

* * *

 

 

He is fifteen, and falls asleep on watch duty.

He is not alone when he wakes. There are boys on all sides of him, boys like him, all naked, all shackled. All of them filthy and bloody and half of them crying. The room is freezing, despite the heat of their bodies. They are blinded when the doors open. The man who steps inside grabs one boy by the hair and drags him away.

One by one they are dragged from the room. One by one they are cleaned and collared. One by one their duties are explained to them, and they are put to work.

It is three months before he escapes the ring.

He doesn't speak of those three months for the rest of his life.

 

* * *

 

 

He is seventeen. There is a cut on his lip and a wound in his side, and he thinks he is dying. He wants to cry, to ask the old man how long the pain will go on, but the darkness takes him before he can.

When he wakes, he is still alive and clean. The wound has been bandaged. A new suit has been laid out for him.

On the bedside table is a glass of water and an envelope containing his new orders.

 

* * *

 

 

He is twenty-two, and it is the dawn of a new decade. He's clinging to his seat, convinced the airplane is going to plunge into the sea at any moment and carry him to his death. When it lands, and he is alive, he allows himself a small prayer of thanks.

It is the last prayer he says for a very, very long time.

 

* * *

 

 

He is forty, and the explosion of a nearby building has lodged a two foot long piece of shrapnel into his ribcage. The pain is unbearable. He lights a cigarette, only for it to fall from his hand as another explosion blows him to pieces.

Moments later, after he has died and been reborn, for the fifth time that day, he lights another cigarette on the way out of the Respawn room. His gun is still heavy and his hands are still thin, but he's gotten better with it now. He has become very, very good at his job.

 

* * *

 

 


	2. The Sniper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonna try to update this at least once a day, since each "chapter" is so short. we'll see how that goes.

* * *

 

He's four, howling with glee at the faces his father makes as his pudgy little hands pull at his thick moustache.

“Wait a few years,” the man grumbles, his eyes alight with hidden laughter. “Then we'll see how _you_ like it when someone tugs _your_ whiskers.”

 

* * *

 

He is five, puffing out his bare chest in the mirror, bringing up his arms like the strong men in the pictures. He's little now, but he'll be big someday. Just you wait.

 

* * *

 

He is seven, trying to wipe away the tears before his mother can see them and start to fuss. He doesn't want her to worry. The other boys were only teasing. They don't really hate him.

How could they hate him when they don't even know him?

 

* * *

 

He is twelve years old, all sharp elbows and knobby knees, trying to heft the heavy rifle his father has handed him. His arms shake under the weight of it. He misses the first six shots.

“Practice,” his father grunts, clapping him hard on the shoulder. “You've got to get good at something. Might as well be something useful, yeah?”

 

* * *

 

He is thirteen, with a black eye. His mum's yelling at him but he's not listening anymore.

He doesn't know what he was thinking. He doesn't know what their names were. He doesn't know why he didn't fight back. He doesn't know why this keeps happening.

He doesn't know why he's different.

 

* * *

 

He's fifteen, staring at his father in disbelief.

Nobody says a word as the man sits down at the table, pulling his newspapers and cup of coffee towards him, nodding thanks as a plate of breakfast is set down in front of him. He says nothing, even when he catches them looking.

But his face is smooth and hairless, for the first time since he was a boy.

Just like his son's.

 

* * *

 

He's nineteen. There's four blokes, two coming in from either side, all of them bigger and stronger than he is. He's already got a bloody lip. The one time he couldn't keep his mouth shut...

They don't expect him to be fast.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty years old, tall and tan and still beanpole-thin. His mum is hugging him around the middle, the top of her head barely coming up to his shoulders, weeping with joy. He comforts her best he can, but he can't stop smiling either. The letter clenched in his fist – he couldn't even make himself let go for her to read it properly – tells him that he's been accepted. He's going to the city. He's going to school. He's finally going to make something useful of himself.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty. He's not going to look his dad in the eye. Not going to hear a fucking word he has to say, not going to listen to anything that's going to come out of his mouth.

He kicks his suitcase back under his bed. His room is just as he left it, four months ago. The posters are still tacked up on the wall. The comic books he used to love are still on the shelves. The rifle is still propped in the corner. And here he is, flopped face down, face buried into the pillow so he doesn't have to feel the shame burning in his cheeks.

Not a goddamn thing has changed.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-six, trying to get the attention of the men who hired him to guide their little hunting trip. They haven't paid any attention to him so far, but it's worth another go. He doesn't care if they don't like him. He only cares if they pay him. But if that snake gets any closer and none of them look up, that's not likely to happen.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-eight and drunk. Drunker than he's ever been. But he has a feeling it's not the drunkest he ever going to be.

The money is real. The money in the bag in his lap, heavy across his thighs. All his.

“For services rendered.”

His rifle – the rifle his dad gave him, he remembers, and takes another drink – is in the dirt at his feet. He couldn't hold it any more. Couldn't have it anywhere near him. Not after what he'd done with it.

He took the shot. God help him, he took the shot, and the money. All that money. All that blood.

He drinks again, and doesn't stop until the world goes black.

 

* * *

 

He's forty-one, trying to calm his father down over the phone.

It was a bad idea, explaining it this way. It seemed like a good plan at the time. Too far away to be hit, at any rate. Not that he could escape the yelling. But they deserve to know where the money's coming from.

His dad deserves to know he was right.

He got good at something. Something useful.

 


	3. The Heavy

* * *

 

He is six, already big for his age, wringing his big hands as he watches his father – another big man, bigger than he will ever be – pace back and forth over the floorboards. The doctor shooed them from the room and closed the door, but they can still hear everything.

He's a bright boy, but he doesn't really understand what's going on until the door flies open and the sounds of a baby's cry pierce the room. Papa rushes in at once. Then he is laughing. Rich, deep laughter that could shake the foundations of the house.

“She's beautiful!” Papa says, with tears on his face. “You are both so beautiful!"

 

* * *

 

He's nine, holding his little sister in his arms while his father reads her to sleep.

It's cold outside, but no colder than usual. The fire burning in the hearth keeps them warm in their little house. Mama has already gone to bed, her belly swollen with another brother or sister for him to hold in the coming months. Papa says he'll keep them safe.

One day he'll be big like Papa. Then he can keep them safe, too.

 

* * *

 

He is fourteen, hunched over the book in his lap, hiding it from the other boys.

The last time they caught him reading – just a simple story book that he'd saved up for and bought with his own money – they'd taken the pages from his hands and trampled them into the snow.

They called him stupid. A big, stupid brute. Tried to goad him into hitting them, but he wouldn't. No matter what they said, not even if they hit him first, he wouldn't hurt them.

“These hands are full of love,” his Mama told him, kissing the backs of his knuckles, reassuring him even after he'd broken another of the good bowls with his clumsiness. “They are not bad hands. They do not mean harm. They are simply learning how to be gentle.”

 

* * *

 

He is fifteen, passing for twenty. The shopkeeper's assistant trembles at the sight of him, but he thanks her softly nonetheless. He doesn't like that people are afraid of him. Doesn't like being stared at. Doesn't like to think about what they must think of him.

“A gentle giant,” his Mama calls him. Just like his Papa.

He used to wonder how anyone could be afraid of Papa. He understands, now, that people will fear anything that is different from themselves.

 

* * *

 

He is eighteen, sitting in the back of the class where he won't block anyone's view, calmly explaining to the professor why he is incorrect in his assumptions about Trediakovsky's motivations.

The sniggering of his classmates stops when they start listening to what he has to say.

 

* * *

 

He's nineteen and hasn't heard from his family in weeks. They were supposed to write at the end of every month. He is worried.

 

* * *

 

He's nineteen, and there is a gun pointed at his head.

The soldiers are all men who are much smaller than him, but there are too many. They shout at him, tell him to get up. Tell him he's coming with them. The other students watch with wide eyes as he is escorted from the classroom, muttering to themselves. He is the third student to be taken this week.

 

* * *

 

He's nineteen years old. There are heavy chains around his wrists, keeping his hands trapped behind his back. He cannot reach out to his sisters, or his Mama, similarly bound on the bench across from him. The girls are crying. Mama has stopped crying now, but only because she has no more tears to shed.

Papa is dead.

Their house has been raided and searched, and they have been named criminals.

The soldiers leer at his oldest little sister. He has never known what it feels like to _want_ to hurt someone until that moment.

 

* * *

 

He is nineteen and choking on smoke.

Mama is asking him questions, asking if he's hurt, asking where all the blood has come from. He doesn't answer her. He holds her hand, holds his baby sister safely against his chest, makes sure the other girls are following close behind as they run off into the night.

These months have changed him.

His hands are bloody. There is no love left in them.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-three, bleeding profusely, but the bear is dead.

They will eat tonight.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty-seven, wary of everyone, making sure everyone is wary of him. It's been a long time since he set foot in a town. But the war is over now.

And even if they know his face, they cannot stop him. He will not allow it.

He pays the frightened shopkeeper and doesn't care what the man thinks of him.

 

* * *

 

He is thirty-two, and the gun is finished. Finally, it is done.

He has crafted this weapon with his own blood and sweat and tears. He has spent good money – money that could have gone to food or clothes or new books – making sure this gun is perfect in all regards.

This is _his_ gun. This is _his_ soul. And with it, he will protect his family.

No one will ever hurt them again.

 

* * *

 

He is thirty-five. He has never seen the ocean before, and it is terrifying below him. Water all around and on all sides, waiting to swallow him and the ship carrying him. He could have taken a plane – it was cheaper, and faster – but he was afraid that the wings would buckle and fall from the sky under his weight, send them plunging to the earth in a fiery ball. Who would take care of Mama then?

He knows the science behind it. He understand the physics. But he was still afraid.

He is afraid now, too. With no land in sight.

Afraid, and more than a little sick.

He is grateful, however, that it is only his lunch that goes flying over the railing and not the rest of him along with it.

 

* * *

 

He is forty-six and laughing.

The bodies in front of him tear like tissue paper, ripped to bloody shreds by so many bullets. They will be back, of course, which is why it is so amusing to watch them die again and again. They will come back, and he will kill them again.

And every body that falls to him is another dollar in his paycheck.

The gun roars and his enemies scream, and all he can do is laugh.

His family will never be hungry again.

 


	4. The Pyro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //adamantly refuses to gender Pyro in any way//
> 
>  
> 
> [a handy pronunciation guide](http://cryptic-youtubers.tumblr.com/post/111805155920/warning-from-markiplier)  
> 

* * *

 

 ****** is five or six, and ****** mother is taking a pack of matches from ****** hand. She puts them in a high cabinet where ****** can't reach them.

 

* * *

 

 ****** are nine or ten. Or maybe eleven. The power is out again, and the house is lit by candlelight. ****** flicks ****** fingers into the flames when nobody is watching, loving the little flashes of pain, and the dark soot marks left on ****** fingertips.

 

* * *

 

 ****** are definitely twelve. It was the first time ****** set a fire in ****** room. A _real_ fire.

 ****** had to put it out when the smoke became too much, but for just those few minutes it was like the whole world was alive with light.

 

* * *

 

 ****** is about fifteen.

The pills are bitter and hard to swallow. They make everything dark.

 

* * *

 

 ****** is seventeen, give or take a year either way. ****** know how to hold the pills in ****** mouth so when the doctors check everything looks fine. ****** still gets caught, sometimes, but most days are bright again. When ****** parents come to visits, and ask if ****** is happy, ****** can honestly answer “yes.”

 

* * *

 

 ****** is maybe twenty.

This is a big fire. Bigger than a cup of water can douse. Not that ****** want to put it out.

It's so big that now everyone _has_ to see how beautiful it is.

 

* * *

 

 ****** don't know how how much time has passed. The doctors have given ****** new medicine. Medicine ****** _has_ to take. ****** will get in trouble if ****** tries to hide it.

Everything is so dark. Everything is dark and everything hurts _so_ much ** can barely move.

All ****** wants is to see the lights again before ****** die.

 

* * *

 

 ****** thinks they might be in ****** thirties. Maybe. Has it been that long?

Maybe.

But that doesn't matter anymore. Everything is bright. It's _so_ bright, all over the place! The light clings to ****** friends, glowing brighter the faster they run, trailing after them like capes of rainbow dust.

 ****** is so happy. Happier than ****** can ever remember being. No more pills, no doctors, no more darkness. No more pain. Well, sometimes there's pain. Sometimes people are mean to ****** , but ****** don't mind.

 ****** loves them anyway.

 


	5. The Scout

* * *

 

He's barely three, arms around his mother's neck while she bounces him on her hip, listening to her yell as two or three of his brothers come tearing into the room, whooping and hollering, bedsheet-capes billowing behind them.

“You rip those sheets and it'll come outta your damn hides, you hear me?” is what his mother shouts, pushing his little hands away when he starts to play with her earring. His brothers either don't hear or don't respond as they disappear down the hall. She sighs and hitches him higher on her hip.

“You're not gonna run around and drive me crazy when you get older, are you?” she asks, turning her head to smile softly at him. “Nah, you won't. You're my good boy, aren'tcha? Who's my good boy? Who's my good baby boy?”

 

* * *

 

He is five, and this year his dad is a man called “Dan.”

Dan ignores him, but that's fine. It's better than getting his arm grabbed and twisted, getting yelled at til he cries. Dan only does that to Ma, now.

He doesn't like Dan.

 

* * *

 

He's still five. Dan is now Phillip. Phillip doesn't yell. He just drinks.

 

* * *

 

He's seven years old, his feet pounding into the pavement beneath him. His knee is scraped and there's gravel stuck in his soft little palms. His sides are hurting and his chest is burning and he feels like he's going to be sick. But he can't stop. If he's not home in time for dinner, Ma will get the spoon out.

 

* * *

 

He is eight, and the oldest of his brothers is roughly ruffling his hair.

“Better luck next time, squirt,” he says, grinning so that his chipped tooth shows. “Gotta be faster than that.”

 

* * *

 

He's ten. The man he's supposed to call dad has a mean grip on his jaw, shaking him.

“You little shit,” he says, blood dipping down his forehead, sticking in his thick eyebrow. “You goddamn _worthless piece'a shit_. I oughta belt you for that. The fuck were you thinkin', huh?”

He doesn't say anything. If he says anything he'll get slapped.

And he's tired of getting slapped.

 

* * *

 

He's almost eleven, stretching up on his tip-toes to peep into the window of his brother's room. There's a girl in there, kneeling on the floor like she dropped something. But his brother isn't helping her look. He's just sitting on the bed in front of her, making faces.

 

* * *

 

He's twelve, tongue between his teeth, angrily erasing his own writing from the paper. His foot won't stop bouncing under the desk and it keeps messing up his letters.

“Pencils down!” the teacher calls from the front of the room, but it's fine. He still has a few more seconds before she notices. He can make it.

 

* * *

 

He is thirteen years old and running for his life.

He can hear them behind him. Four or five of them, all a helluva lot bigger and meaner than he is. One of them is his brother.

Not that that'll save him if they catch him.

And they do.

 

* * *

 

He's thirteen with a broken nose and swollen eye and a broken arm. His shoulder's all fucked up too. His brother has a broken hand.

“'Least you still got all your teeth,” his Ma says on the car ride home, as an afterthought.

“Not for long, if he don't learn to keep his mouth shut,” his brother says from the backseat. Ma doesn't even slow the car down when she reaches back to smack him across the ear. Then the yelling starts again.

 

* * *

 

He's fifteen.

Stretching hurts, but it'll be worse if he doesn't stretch at all.

His breath comes out in little cloudy puffs in front of his face and his cheeks are already red from the cold, but the ground isn't frozen up yet. He can still get a run or two in for the next couple days.

 

* * *

 

He's sixteen and a half, trying not to listen to the fatheaded teacher telling his Ma what an idiot he is.

“He doesn't apply himself,” which is _bullshit._ He is totally fucking _applied_ when he steps into class, alright? Maybe if the lessons weren't so _boring_ and there weren't so many goddamn pages to sit and read in silence, without moving or doing anything else for hours and hours and _hours -_

“I don't see a bright future for your boy unless he learns to shape himself up,” the teacher says, frowning, and that is _it._ He's gonna bash this fucker's head in, gonna splatter it all over the floor, show him just how much he can _apply_ himself.

Ma is on her feet before he is.

And she can hit a whole lot harder than he can, too.

Neither of them are welcome back at the school.

 

* * *

 

He's eighteen years old, wiping snot from his runny nose. He's not sobbing anymore, but he keeps doing this weird hiccupping thing that's starting to make his throat hurt.

He's never coming home.

Their last conversation was a fight, and he can't even remember what he was so mad about. Why it felt so important to yell at the time.

His brother's widow is pretty and blonde and so is their baby, sitting down the pew in front of him. Everybody is wearing black. It makes Ma look too pale and makes her hair look darker, which only makes the few strands of grey stand out. She's holding his hand so tightly it hurts, but he's not gonna say anything. Not when he can feel her shaking like that.

They can't afford this funeral.

 

* * *

 

He's been twenty-one for a week and he's finally starting to get the hang of this.

He'd never used a gun before they handed it to him, but it's not that hard. Point and shoot. Easy-peasy. The bat's more familiar, feels better in his hands. It feels good to _hit_ something. It feels good to run and jump and show off, show them all how good he is. These old fuckers couldn't catch him if they tried.

He's sure Ma would be proud, if he could tell her what he was doing.

If he could tell her why.


	6. The Demoman

* * *

 

He's four years old and laughing. Tottering around the house on his pudgy legs, chasing after the dog that has stolen his toy airplane. He doesn't hear the footsteps behind him before he's scooped into strong, warm arms, held close and tickled until he's shrieking with laughter and love.

 

* * *

 

He's five, sitting on the windowsill with an old, heavy book on his lap. He can't read most of the words, but he can see the pictures. They fill his mind. Swimming behind the backs of his eyes.

The monsters devour him in his dreams.

He wakes up angry, without the words to explain why.

 

* * *

 

He is six.

These are his parents, they say. His _real_ parents. They're dark like him, both of them blind, both of them putting cold, callused hands on his cheeks to feel his features.

“That's him,” says the man who is and isn't his father. “That's our boy.”

Their arms aren't warm and neither of them will hold his hand.

He doesn't feel like theirs.

 

* * *

 

He's eight, looking at himself in the mirror, tears leaking down only one side of his face.

He's still too scared to look under the bandages.

 

* * *

 

He's eleven, hollering with joy, watching the synchronized explosions go off just as he set them. The display lights up the sky. The crater it leaves is something to behold.

His mouth is wide open when a stray clump of earth hits him in the face.

 

* * *

 

He's thirteen. His father – the second one he's had in his life – is dead. His mother – also the second – has a thin arm wrapped tightly around his shoulders, holding him close, leaning on him for support as they stand in front of the open grave.

“Yer a good lad,” she says thickly, though he hasn't seen her cry and knows he never will. “An' he was proud'a ye. We're both _proud_ 'a ye.”

He reaches up and squeezes her hand. For once, she squeezes back.

At least this time there's a body to mourn.

 

* * *

 

He's fifteen, looking for work.

The shopkeepers stare him down as soon as he sets foot in the door, taking in his complexion, his clothes, the patch over his eye. He says his lines, and they say theirs, and he leaves. Angry and humiliated and not sure how soon he should start running before he's safe.

 

* * *

 

He's almost seventeen, taking his first drink.

His mother slides him the glass and tells him to pour. She stops him when he tries to pass it back to her.

“That's fer you,” she says, reaching forward the pulling the bottle back toward herself. “It dunnae always help. But it ought tae put ye tae sleep without the dreams.”

The first sip burns and he almost chokes. He empties the glass and helps his mother to bed before finding his own.

He asks for another glass the next night.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty. Tall and strapping, stronger than he's been in his life, beating the tar out of three fools who were dumb enough to follow him into the alley, thinking they'd have an easy time of it. One of them pulls a knife. He hits them hard enough that their skull cracks against the brick wall behind them.

They don't get up.

He runs, once the other two are out cold.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-two, getting kicked out of the third pub of the night.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-five. The beast is still out there. Still waiting, lurking below. He wasn't ready the first time. He'd been too young and too hasty, too untrained to know which method was best. What would create the biggest blast.

But he was older now. And the monster's days were numbered.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty-nine, shaving in the mirror.

The hole doesn't bother him anymore.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-eight, drunk and laughing and sailing through the air.

The landing will hurt, because it always does, but right here and now he's _soaring._ Flying right over the tops of their front lines, watching them all scurry like little ants beneath him. From this height, he's a giant.

_King o'the fuckin' world._

The sword is in his hand before his lands, swinging it in a sweeping arc over his head, laughing madly as the great blade connects and rends another head from another pair of shoulders. Men are screaming all around him, all of them too wary to get any closer to him.

For once in his life, he likes his job.

 


	7. The Engineer

* * *

 

He's five, fooling around with the Tinkertoys his Maw-Maw got him for Christmas.

He's gonna make a race-car. No, a space-ship. No, a _robot_ , that will do all his chores for him and do whatever he says. If he just had a couple more blue pieces...

 

* * *

 

He is seven and sweating.

His short little legs are moving as fast as they can but his pants keep trying to slip down and won't stay up when he pulls them over his round little tummy. The other boys are running circles around him, laughing, and the gym teacher is clapping his hands to try to make him go faster, yelling at him to hurry up but he _can't._

 

* * *

 

He's ten, giddy in the workshop, finding and handing over whichever tools his Pa calls for. He's got almost all of them memorized now, even if he does get a wrench or two mixed up.

 

* * *

 

He's twelve. He's got a hammer in his hand. And if those boys don't stop calling him names, don't stop flicking stuff at the back of his head, don't stop tripping him when he tries to walk past one of them, don't stop knocking his lunch to the floor, don't stop making fun of his braces, don't stop laughing at him, if they don't _stop –_

 

* * *

 

He's fifteen, still waiting for his growth-spurt.

 

* * *

 

He is sixteen years old, wiping sweat from his brow. He's been welding for a couple hours now, but it looks about done.

“Just a simple mechanism?” his shop teacher repeated, examining the device with wide eyes when he brings it in. “Son, I think you passed “simple” a couple circuits ago...”

 

* * *

 

He's nineteen and strong. He's spent the summer out in the fields, earning his keep, and it shows on his sunburnt arms and shoulders. His hands are hard with calluses and the word “redneck” comes up more often than he'd like, but he's not complaining. It's good, honest work.

He's not ashamed of where he comes from.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-two, squaring up to some dumb punk who thinks that just because he's a few inches shorter and few pounds heavier than every other man in the room he might not be able to hear as well, either.

He heard what they said, and he gives them a chance to apologize.

When they don't, he starts swinging.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-five, blushing. He's never been one to blush, but she sure knows how to bring out the unexpected in him.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-six with his hands balled into fists at his sides, counting down from ten. He's not a damn kid anymore, but his Pa sure knows how to make him feel like one.

The old man is tougher than he looks. Hitting him wouldn't do anyone any good.

But boy would it be satisfying.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-eight and happier than he's ever been.

He feels short of breath and off-balance, like the rug is about to be pulled out from him at any moment. She's standing there, more beautiful than anything he's ever seen before, smiling at him like he's ten feet tall.

“I do,” she says, finally, when the pastor's done saying his bit.

He stand on his toes and kisses her until they're both breathless. Someone whistles from the back of the pews.

 

* * *

 

He'll be thirty tomorrow. There's sweat running down his brow and down his back, making his shirt stick to his skin. The machine drowns out all sound around him, and behind him. He doesn't hear her come in. Doesn't hear her ask when he's coming to dinner.

He doesn't hear her, later, ask when he's coming to bed.

Eventually she stops asking.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty, running on fumes.

The blueprints _look_ right, but looks don't mean a damn thing. The pieces are in place, just like the paper says, but nothing's happening. It doesn't work.

He kicks his toolbox, sending wrenches and screwdrivers scattering all across the floor.

 

* * *

 

He is thirty-three and crying with joy.

Eight pounds, fourteen ounces. Ten fingers and toes. Rosy cheeks, a thick tuft of blonde hair on top of her head. She's so small in his arms. He holds her like she's made of glass, unable to form words around his tears.

He's worked with machines all he's life. He's seen firsthand what computers are becoming capable of. He thought he'd seen true beauty in the face of a circuit board, but this...

She is the most perfect thing in this world, and he will do everything in his power to keep her safe.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-three and sleep deprived.

She won't stop. He's tried everything. Fed her, held her, changed her, read to her, burped her, sang to her, made funny faces til his cheeks were sore, but she just won't stop _crying_ _._

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-three, biting his tongue to stop from saying something he'll regret.

It's not her fault. She hasn't slept either. It's not anybody's fault. This is just how it's going to be for a while. Deep breaths. Just take deep breaths.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-six, staring at the files in his shaking hands.

They're dusty, having been in the ground for so long, and the odor that clings to them can only be described as _old._

His grandfather's name is scrawled across the front cover in faded ink. Strong, blocky letters that have a strange elegance to them, to his eye. Or maybe he's just being sentimental.

The paper is so fragile he's almost afraid to turn the page, but he knows he has to.

This is his legacy. Held in the palm of his hand.

 

* * *

 

He is thirty-six years old, blood dripping off the wrench in his hand.

The red gets in the gears of his buildings, pounded into the metal, scraping off into the paint coating. He doesn't even try to wipe it off. There's no time.

Besides, he kinda likes the way it looks. Adds a personal touch to an otherwise impersonal killing machine.

He thinks there's some kinda beauty in that.


	8. The Medic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinda sorta going with some of the stuff i touched on in WDITD just without the hundred years ago business

* * *

 

He is six years old, kicking his feet against the back of the pew in front of him.

His oldest sister grabs his wrist and tells him to stop before their father catches him. But Father is praying, eyes closed, hands clasped, mouthing the words along with the priest. Father doesn't see the sweet that she slips into his little hand. Father doesn't see the way Mother keeps checking her watch.

 

* * *

 

He is seven and hates his glasses because the other boys make fun of them. He stuffs them into his pockets and tries to straighten the bends in the frames before he comes home. His mother still notices. She takes away his books as punishment for lying.

 

* * *

 

He is eight years old, and he has never seen so much blood in his life.

The tub is filled with it. Overflowing. It seeps into his shoes when he takes a step into the room, and it is warm. His sister isn't moving.

She had stopped singing. She always sang when she bathed, and when she stopped he knew it was his turn to get into the water while it was still hot. She stopped singing, but she hadn't opened the door. And water squished under his feet as he stood on the carpet outside, knocking. She didn't answer. She didn't even shout at him when he turned the handle.

When he wakes up, lying on the damp floor, blood seeping into the back of his clothes and his hair, it is to the sound of his father crying.

 

* * *

 

He is eight, and the funeral is too quiet. His other sister – now his _only_ sister – is holding his hand tight enough to hurt. He doesn't try to pull away. The pain is the only thing keeping him awake, and keeping the nightmares at bay.

 

* * *

 

He's ten with his knees drawn up to his chest, hunched over the book he has stolen from the library. The pictures are terrifying. The human body is a disgusting, fascinating mechanism. So resilient, and yet so easily broken down, or torn apart, or ruined from within.

He can't look away.

 

* * *

 

He is fourteen, in a room full of boys nearly ten years his senior. His tongue is caught between his teeth and the pencil in his hand is flying over the paper.

He finishes the exam in record time and hands it in, smiling smugly at the jealousy on the faces of his older classmates.

 

* * *

 

He's seventeen, lean and athletic.

The day is hot and his lungs are burning, but he has to keep running. He has to push himself. He has to work past the pain and the shortness of breath, and the soreness that will surely follow.

How else can he excel, if he doesn't push beyond his limits?

 

* * *

 

He is eighteen, assisting in a surgery, wrist-deep in the chest of a woman who has stopped breathing. He is holding her heart in his hand. He is keeping her alive. Without him, she would die.

His hands shake for hours afterward.

The power is intoxicating.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty-two, and his uniform is clean.

He is not a soldier. He is not armed, and he is not meant to fight. He is meant to help, and to heal, and to save all those that he can. That is what they told him, when they dragged him from school. When they recited his duty to his country. When they repeated his oath to him.

He never wanted to take life. Only to save it. To study it.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty two, and his uniform is drenched in blood. None of it is his.

The soldier on the ground, an Englishman, a boy younger than himself, ran at him first. Raised his weapon, yelled at him. Tried to hit him. It was self defense.

There is a scalpel in his hand. The boy's entrails are splattered in the muddy ground. His hands are red, from when he tried to hold them in, before the knife came down again, and again, and again, and again.

It was self defense.

Until it wasn't.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty-five years old and an officer.

He packs his things hurriedly, one eye on the door, heart pounding in his chest. They are coming for him. They know what he's done, what he's been doing, that he's the only who one could have done it. The General died too soon. He was supposed to have until morning.

If they catch him they will hang him. But if they don't, there is a ship waiting.

The things he does in the name of progress...

 

* * *

 

He is twenty-nine, shaking hands with an American. The paperwork has been cleared.

“Welcome aboard, Doctor,” the man says to him, in English, and he smiles.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-six, breathing hard and sweating.

He's given up trying to staunch the bleeding. Trying to make it look like an accident, or a case of bad luck. Now it is simply a matter of preserving the tissue, harvesting samples before the decay sets in.

They knew what he was when they hired him.

The family will be compensated for their loss.

 

* * *

 

He is thirty-six and running again. Packing his things and leaving under the cover of night. All of his research lays smoldering in the fireplace.

He will not allow others to benefit from the work they condemn him for. _Damn them all_.

He will start again.

 

* * *

 

He's nearly forty-nine with a mad glint in his eyes, and there is even more blood on his hands. This time _most_ of it is his.

He hefts the heavy saw in his hand as the boy comes around again, whooping with the confidence of an easy kill. The cry is cut off as the saw tears across his throat, biting deep into his neck, surgical steel teeth lodging soundly in his collarbone.

He puts a boot to the boy's chest and pulls the blade free with a grunt. The wound in his shoulder has already begun to stitch itself closed. He does not allow himself a moment to rest.

There is more work to be done.

 


	9. The Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for dysphoria

* * *

 

He's born, and his mother names him Jane.

It takes him a long time to stop blaming her for that.

 

* * *

 

He's three, ripping the pink frills off his dress with meaty little hands.

 

* * *

 

He's six and both his knees are scraped. There's mud on his bobby-socks, but he thinks they look better that way.

 

* * *

 

He's eleven, sitting in the state mandated Health Class, squirming and confused.

 

* * *

 

He's thirteen with his arms crossed over his chest, shoulders hunched. Slouching. His mother tells him not to slouch. He keeps catching flashes of worry in her eyes.

He doesn't have the words to explain what's wrong.

 

* * *

 

He's seventeen and angry.

 

* * *

 

He's seventeen years old, chopping off his hair with his mother's sewing shears, not sure exactly why he's crying.

 

* * *

 

He's eighteen, standing in line at the enlistment office, nervously eying the proclamation that reads “MANDATORY PHYSICAL EXAMINATION.”

The bandages make his chest look right from the outside, but if he has to take his shirt off...

He chickens out when he's second in line.

There are jeers behind him when he walks out the door and his face burns red during the whole walk home.

He wants to serve, but they won't let him. They won't fucking _let him._

 

* * *

 

He is twenty-two and still angry, sitting on a barstool with his shoulders drooped and his legs spread, trying to emulate the posture of the men on either side of him. Trying to fit in. Trying not to call attention to himself.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-three in another enlistment office, with his shirt unbuttoned, staring down a ferret-faced doctor.

“I'm sorry, Miss-” is all the doctor has a chance to say before he punches him in the nose.

 

* * *

 

He is twenty-four years old, with bruised knuckles and thick muscles that bulge under the sleeves of his shirt. He's tall enough, and he figures he might be reasonably handsome with his hair buzzed short the way it is.

It's a start.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-seven, on a plane to Europe. He's never left his homestate before and doesn't speak any language besides English, but that's alright. He'll know a piece of Nazi scum when he sees one.

 

* * *

 

He's twenty-nine, drenched in blood and mud and gunshot residue. There's a cigar between his teeth and a smile on his lips for the first time in fifteen years.

 _This_ is where he was meant to be.

 

* * *

 

He is thirty-two, holding back his hatred long enough to tell the kraut sonavabitch doctor exactly what he wants and exactly how much he's willing to pay for it.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-two, with enough painkillers in him to put an elephant on its ass. He's going back tomorrow, for the last time.

He's always been the type of man who finishes what he's started.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-two, squinting suspiciously at the list of medications the doctor prescribed him. Some of the words are hard to read through the bloodspatter, but it's too late to ask the doctor to rewrite it.

 

* * *

 

He's thirty-seven. Shaving in the bathroom mirror.

 

* * *

 

He's forty, getting undressed for bed after a hard day's work.

The floor length mirror in the corner of the hotel room doesn't bother him anymore.

 

* * *

 

He is forty-five with a shovel in his hand, beating his helmet and giving a rousing battle cry to spur his team into action.

The blood's roaring in his ears and he can smell the smoke of a gas fire nearby, but that's not the main concern right now. Not when they are inches from victory.

His men scream with him as they charge forward on his command, capturing their objective and earning their pay for the week. He gives them each a sound pat on the back.

“Good call, Soldier,” somebody says, slinging a friendly arm around his shoulder.

He doesn't bother trying to hide his grin.

 


End file.
